Back To School

I am blaming my absence this past few days on back to school--not, not me, but my youngest who is in his second-last year of high school. As he's at boarding school and will be gone a couple of months before the next holidays, this involves some organisation and a great deal of labelling and packing and then a long drive. This also leaves me, like all mothers I'm sure, in a bit of a post-holidays slump. What can I say? I love having my family all around me and when they're gone, it just isn't the same. :-(

In case you are wondering about this back-to-school time, let me explain the Australian system. Our school year runs with the calendar year. Kids start school at the very end of January or the first days of February (depending on the school and the day of the week etc) and finish their school year some time in December. In my state (New South Wales), the 2006 school year started January 30 and finishes December 21. That's for government-run schools. Private schools generally finish up a couple of weeks earlier. In between, there are holidays in late April (2 weeks), early July (2 weeks) and early October (2 weeks.)

What I hate most about this system is sending our kids back to school at the hottest time of the year. This last week has been roasting (well over 100 every day) and although many school are air-conditioned there is the travelling. And the playgrounds that aren't air-conditioned. And the fact that, in this kind of heat, air-con doesn't always do its job efficiently. Anyway, that's the way it is and the way it's always been and how the heck did we survive back in the olden days (like, when I was at school *g*) when there was no air-con? Hmm?

Anyway, to summarize: our kids get 11-12 weeks of holidays, all up, including the 5-6 weeks in Dec-Jan. I know American schools have a big block of holidays over the summer but what about the rest of the year? Do they get more weeks of holidays at other times like our kids do, or does the total end up about the same?